All News & Highlights

A groundbreaking study released today by the Harvard Forest and the Smithsonian Institution reveals that, if left unchecked, recent trends in the loss of forests to development will undermine significant land conservation gains in Massachusetts, jeopardize water quality, and limit the natural landscape's ability to protect against climate change.

Note: applications closed Feb. 7, 2014. Applications are now being accepted for the 2014 Harvard Forest Summer Research Program, an opportunity for college and university students across the U.S. to participate in 11 weeks (May 26-August 8, 2014﻿) of paid, independent research with mentors from Harvard and other leading institutions. 2014 research projects focus on the ecological dimensions

Through respiration and photosynthesis, terrestrial soils and plants control 1/6 of all carbon present in the atmosphere﻿. Results from more than 100,000 individual measurements of forest soil respiration, conducted at the Harvard Forest by scientists from 8 institutions over 22 years, casts new light on how carbon cycles through these complex plant and soil systems. The research team

Applications are now being accepted for the 2014 Harvard Forest Winter Break Week (Jan. 19-24), an immersive, interdisciplinary opportunity for Harvard students to explore the Harvard Forest landscape. Daily hands-on workshops and field trips led by scientists, artists, and writers will offer students a variety of perspectives on real-world ecological and conservation topics. This program is made possible at

A brief synthesis of large, old tree dynamics, recently published by the journal Conservation Letters, shows that despite concerns of widespread declines of large trees, forest research from the USA, Sweden, European Union, and the tropics reveal that large trees have actually increased in many of the world’s forests in recent decades. The author of the article, Harvard

Jonathan Thompson has joined the Harvard Forest staff as a new Senior Ecologist. He comes to us from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, where he was a Research Scientist and Landscape Ecologist. Before joining the Smithsonian in 2009, Thompson ﻿spent two years as a Bullard Fellow and Research Associate here at Harvard Forest. He holds an undergraduate degree

A new Harvard Forest study released today in Global Change Biology provides the first detailed account of how carbon, water, and energy balances shift in the years following a clearcut of a broadleaf temperate forest.

Results show a steady loss of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from the clearcut area, primarily from exposed soils and decaying wood. The cleared area

A comparative study of red maple trees at the Harvard Forest and at Bartlett Experimental Forest in New Hampshire sheds new light on how trees allocate carbon throughout their life cycle--including just after they have been cut. The researchers used radiocarbon dating to "age" the carbon in new sprouts that emerge from stumps when trees are harvested.